


Words Unheard

by HopeStoryteller



Series: stay close (move fast) [1]
Category: Zombies Run!
Genre: F/M, Female Runner Five, I have FEELINGS about this mission okay, I think it's 7? it's the one called a voice in the dark, Janine is mentioned (Five wants to slap her), Pining, Pining While Running From Zombies And Crying, Selectively Mute Runner Five, during and after s1m7, not necessarily in that order, trust me you know it if you've played it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-11
Updated: 2019-11-11
Packaged: 2021-01-29 00:21:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,674
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21401068
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HopeStoryteller/pseuds/HopeStoryteller
Summary: Five's perspective on a particular 'mission,' which more accurately is 'try to get back to Abel without getting hopelessly lost or being stuck outside the gates while your friends watch you get eaten and/or zommed.' Also some of what happens after. She's not in denial so much as slightly oblivious.
Relationships: Runner Five & Sam Yao, Runner Five/Sam Yao
Series: stay close (move fast) [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1698457
Comments: 6
Kudos: 36





	Words Unheard

“Runner Five, come in. Runner Five…”

She’s been hearing static here, a hint of audio there, but until now, she hasn’t gotten anything concrete. Until now, she couldn’t tell for sure what she was hearing, if anything.

But that? That was Sam, clear as day, and Five could cry. Would cry, except that every shadow looks like a zom and she doesn’t need to attract any attention. She’s been as good as dead for… she doesn’t know how long it’s been.

She presses in the talk button on her headset, and whispers, “This is she.”

It’s the most words she’s spoken in… a while. Sam probably doesn’t even know what she sounds like. But as she lets up on the button, scans her surroundings and keeps up a brisk walk, she hopes he can tell it’s her.

“Runner Five,” Sam says, and her hopes take wing, soaring like a majestic, beautiful bird of prey. Only to be dashed to bits on metaphorical rocks as he continues, “I don’t know if you can hear me.”

The second time Five speaks in months is a vehement string of swearing. Vehement, yet quiet, and it still manages to attract the attention of a pair of zoms. One of them can’t have been any older than a middle schooler before they turned, and is ironically enough wearing the remnants of a t-shirt promoting _The Walking Dead._

She increases her pace to a jog, and thanks… _something_ that it’s a full moon tonight. Otherwise, she’d be even more screwed than she is. Above her, the moonshines down, illuminating the streets thankfully _just_ enough that she doesn’t need a flashlight. Which is good, because she doesn’t have a flashlight, and if she did it would be essentially digging her own grave to use it.

Yeah, let’s attract _more_ zoms via sudden bright light. What could possibly go wrong there?

“Truth is,” Sam says, “I… I don’t even know if you’re alive. Odds aren’t good, right?”

He laughs humorlessly. Five glances back, finds she’s lost ironic zom and the other one, and slows down some. Best to conserve her energy, but also she can’t afford to stop moving. As she keeps up a somewhat slower jog, she keeps listening to Sam. It’s something to focus on, something to keep her from passing out from exhaustion or sleep deprivation—she doesn’t even _know_ what time it is, but she’d definitely stayed up later than she should have last night. The night before this night. The night before _New Canton._

(If she sees Janine again, she’s going to slap her. Hard. Consequences be damned.)

At this point, she’s hoping she didn’t use up all her luck on not getting shot or captured, because it won’t do her any good if she dies out here now. Which, she probably will. Does she want to? Absolutely not.

Then Sam says something about a horde of zoms coming from the north, and that if she doesn’t get back before they arrive they’ll have to close the gates on her. Sam’s voice breaks, and it’s all she can do not to start sprinting right then.

But she can’t sprint. Not yet. She needs to conserve her energy, pace herself. Otherwise she’ll never make it back to Abel.

But she doesn’t know how far away she _is_ from Abel, and where the horde of zoms is—for all she knows, she could be behind them. That’s a terrifying thought.

She picks up the pace as much as she dares, and listens. Sam comes back on in a few minutes, rambles a bit. Five decides that if she makes it back, the first thing she’s doing is giving the poor guy a hug. A few minutes later, she decides that she _has_ to make it back, because dammit, Sam really, really needs a hug, and he wouldn’t take it very well from a zombie.

Although if she was a zombie, and she had the presence of mind to attempt to hug Sam in this theoretical situation instead of eating his brains, she’d run as fast as she could in the opposite direction. Now, if it was certain other people, she probably _would_ eat their brains. If she was a zombie. Which she’s not, and has no intention of being now, so she’ll have to settle for slapping her if she gets back.

“When,” she says out loud, like that makes it more real. “When I get back.”

Sam leaves briefly to check on something as innocuous as whether an ice cream roll had cake on the outside and ice cream on the inside or the other way around, and despite this, Five finds herself smiling.

Then he starts talking about his past, and Five finds she’s never been more glad to hear that someone’s dead. That, or she’s pissed that she didn’t get to scream at Sam’s father before his death, didn’t get to ask him why, why, _why_ would you force the boundless enthusiasm that is Sam Yao into an _engineering degree?_ But then again, she hadn’t known Sam Yao existed back before.

She wonders, briefly, if their paths had ever crossed before. If their paths would have ever crossed before. If, had things been different, if they would have ever even met. Or if their paths would have crossed, and neither would have noticed or ever known what they were missing.

Sam takes a shaky breath, and says, “I’ll… be right back.”

He stops talking. He can’t hear her, even if she did talk. And, honestly, it’s easier to run when you’re not trying to run. And yet, when Five picks up the pace some more, increasing to a quicker jog that could charitably be called a run, she starts talking, too.

“Before,” Five says in a voice rough from disuse, “I didn’t talk much. I tried, but… nobody ever listened. _Really_ listened, y’know? And then zoms happened, and I… got even quieter. I didn’t need to talk as much. And by the time I reached Abel, I… hadn’t spoken in months, I think. I don’t remember how long.”

She risks a glance behind her again. No audience, although she can hear footsteps nearby. Shambling ones. Zoms. Maybe, just maybe, they’re on a different street and she’ll be able to pass them.

“You can’t hear me,” she continues. “You can’t hear any of this. And I’m not sure I’d want you to. But I… fuck, if I wanted anyone to hear this, it would be you.”

She catches a flicker of movement in the corner of her eye, and looks.

The good news is, her guess was right. The zoms were on a street just a block down from her, and the reason she could hear the horde was because, well. One, it’s a _horde_. And two, sound travels farther at night.

The bad news is, the horde’s seen her, and they’re starting to come this way.

“It would have been you,” she chokes out, and _runs._ She keeps running.

Somewhere, she crosses the thin line between a run and a full-out sprint. She’s been over that line for much longer than her body would like. At this point her lungs are gasping for air, but she can’t stop, can’t stop, can’t stop. Can’t stop running now, not now that she’s so close.

She can see Abel. She can see the gate.

Unfortunately, she can also hear Sam screaming about the thirty or so zombies _right behind her_, and she can also see the gate closing, and she’s not going to make it in time.

But she has to make it in time.

Adrenaline helps her put on one last burst of speed, and she rolls under the gate. She doesn’t know how close she was, isn’t sure she wants to know. She could have made it in at the literal last second, or she could have had several to spare.

What matters right now is the guy right in front of her, who’d been here for her and been there for her. He helps her up without words. Their eyes meet. Sam’s are suspiciously bright and wet, and to say he looks a wreck is a gross understatement.

He opens his mouth to speak.

Five pulls him into a hug. Sam stiffens briefly, then relaxes. The tears start to fall, or at least hers do.

“We’ve got you, Five,” he says, his words somehow not betraying the way she can feel his shoulders beginning to shake. “You’re home!”

There’s a million things she wants to say. She says none of them. Instead, she whispers, “I think the talk button on my headset is broken.”

_Also, you really, really sounded like you needed a hug. And still need a hug. And you never gave up on me. Thank you for never giving up on me. Thank you for being there, for believing in me, for talking to me. Thank you, thank you, thank you._

The dam holding back her words doesn’t break. Not this time. Not yet. Instead, she steps back, and smiles.

“Uhm. Right. Let’s… handle that tomorrow. You look worse than I do.”

She glares. Even though he does have a point. Now that the adrenaline rush is beginning to fade, she’s… _really_ tired. It’s taking all the willpower she has to stay on her feet. That, and focusing on whatever she can, which happens to be Sam’s face. He’s pretty. Not that he isn’t always, but she’s a bit more aware of it at the moment.

“I mean that in the best possible way, of course,” he hastily corrects. “Seriously, though. You look like you’re about to fall over.”

She blinks hard, squints. Nods. Tries to think of the best nonverbal way to convey the words _I am._

“Let’s get you to the barracks,” Sam says, softer this time. “Collapsing in the middle of Abel after this would be… embarrassing. And awkward.”

(If on the way there, Five leans on him perhaps a bit more than is necessary, that’s nobody’s business but hers.)

**Author's Note:**

> I just got back into ZR and I'm still trying to get a Runner's Club membership. It's a work in progress because the parental controls are being stupid, never mind that, do I even really NEED parental controls if it's my own money I'm spending??? (Not to @ my mother or anything, but that's absolutely the case.)
> 
> Anyway! Catch me running this mission out back and sobbing as I get so much Sam backstory it's beautiful, but at what cost? He needs a hug. He _really_ needs a hug. Most of my motivation in writing this was living vicariously through this particular version of Five to give him a hug.


End file.
